Shadow in the Moonlight
by spacefaerie
Summary: "The devil was once an angel," she smiled knowingly, her eyelids suddenly very heavy. "You mustn't forget that, Umehito." Nekozawa finds someone in college, a strange young woman who shines like the moon. But will his new Dark Arts Club keep them apart? Can moonlight and shadow coexist? (My first fanfiction)
1. The Dark Arts Club

Nekozawa Umehito was an absolute mess. After making it through his first semester of college, he took leave and holed himself up in his wing at home, opting to learn on his own and stay far removed from the chipper and spritely students at his university. He would rather be a hermit than be bereft of the black magic and dark arts that made up much of who he was. Besides, Emily Dickinson had locked herself away and produced many brilliant poems. He would do the same.

Sitting at his desk in the private dorm room his family reserved for him, he sighed and muttered curses under his breath. Of course, Emily Dickinson did not have the same pressures that he did and did not have to make a bigger living for herself. Nekozawa did.

He pushed his hood back and cast a longing look at the bored black cat perched on his shelf, purring quietly and licking it's paw. Her presence was really the only thing to remove him from his house. They bribed him. If we would leave for the fall semester, he would receive a cat who has been bred specifically for the Nekozawa family, with careful thought toward the cat gods they've worshipped from the very beginning. Beelzenef insisted he return to academia and Kirimi promised him she'd take care of his house cleansing and protective rituals in his absence. He was such a proud big brother.

At any rate, he was also quite melancholy. He hadn't realised the social impact of the Black Magic Club on his life and when he began college he found himself terribly out of his element and a whole new spectacle hiding under a black cloak. He attempted to blend in with the rest of the students and tried a black hooded sweatshirt but it didn't quite feel as secure and Beelzenef couldn't tuck away in its folds. He had no special activity club, nobody to turn to as Reiko was still at Ouran, and black magic was ostracized. He had heard there was a satanic club somewhere on campus but there is a difference between his magic and satanism.

An alarm chimed and he glanced toward his phone, sitting on the desktop next to his arm. Ah yes, the activity fair his advisor insisted he attend. He decided he'd give it a few minutes before returning to his dark room and continuing his reading.

After a moment of deliberation, Nekozawa heaved a sigh and pat Nyx gently on her head, grabbing Beelzenef and slipping him over his hand.

...

The Dark Arts Club struck fear into the hearts of many - or at least, that is what the idea was. In reality, they were a strained mish mash of angsty college students who simply didn't fit in anywhere else or were rebelling against their parents and society. Aspiring anarchists who loved the comfort of their summer mansions in the tropics and Roll Royses chauffeuring them wherever they wished to go. But when an overwhelmed Nekozawa Umehito stumbled upon their table set up in the shade of the building stretching before the quad, away from the rest of the club tables, he found his curiosity piqued.

Beelzenef pulled him forward, toward the black-clad students, frowns painted on their faces. "Black magic, I see," he greeted in an eerie tone, tilting his head and allowing his hood to show a curious azure eye.

"Yeah," one of the unamused students answered in a clipped voice. "What's it to you?"

"I am quite skilled in the dark arts," he went on, eyes falling to the tabletop to take in the crystals scattered around a silver ceremonial dish with a melted candle sticking up in its centre. He frowned. "Wax should never touch this dish," he said, reading the mysterious inscriptions along the rim with ease.

The student frown back at him and pushed a hand through his dark hair. "The Dark Queen told us to burn a ceremonial candle for the activity fair to lure in newbies. So we did. Never question the Dark Qu-"

Another student behind him nudged him with his elbow. "Shut up, Ken," he hissed and turned sharp eyes onto Nekozawa. "You know the Dark Arts, you say?"

"As well as Death knows Sorrow," he beamed from under his hood, Beelzenef nodding in agreement.

"Awesome," the student said, moving Ken aside and holding up a poorly painted black clipboard. "Would you like to join our Dark Arts Club? The Dark Queen would be eager for a new addition," he proclaimed, thrusting the clipboard across the table and into Nekozawa's free hand. "We don't get many new people but we need to reach quotas in order to be recognized by the university. Without recognition, we wouldn't get the funding and face-time we need."

Nekozawa nodded in understanding. "I was the leader of a Black Magic Club in my high school in Ouran. We would offer curse dolls and coupons to bring in more people."

"Oh, did that work?" the young man asked, impressed.

He paused. It didn't quite work, no, but he would be too embarrassed to admit his failures at ushering in new people. Instead he chuckled darkly and Beelzenef handed him a quill to sign his name and give his cell phone number on the sheet, handing it back to the club member with a flourish of his cloak.

"Thanks, man!" he said, taking the clipboard back. "I'm Daisuke, by the way."

"Nekozawa."


	2. Images in the Flames

My chapters are pretty short for now but when more action starts happening, they should get longer. A good thing about shorter chapters, though, is that they get updated faster! Anyway, here's Nekozawa doing his thing:

...

The corridor was dark, filled with shadows and the silver light flooding through thick windows like the spindles of spiderwebs. Nekozawa felt quite comfortable as he strolled down the marble floor, footsteps silent from years of practice with creepy entrances.

He stopped at the door at the end of the hall and creaked it open, seeing firelight dance along the stone wall from the bottom of the shadowy stairs and hearing low voices echoing up to greet him.

How delightfully dark, he thought to himself, stepping onto the landing with a pleased, sinister smile. He swept downstairs and took in the sight that lay before him.

The stairs led to a small part of the basement, pipes stretching down the stone walls and disappearing in the back. In the middle of the room there was a small pit where someone had torn up the floorboards and reinforced it with large stones. Raging in the pit was a fire that caused the light to flicker eerily on the faces of the rest of the cloaked figures in the room that stood around it. Some of them looked up and regarded him with an annoyed look but one face in particular lit up at his presence.

"Nekozawa-san!" Daisuke exclaimed, gesturing for him to come forward.

"Hello," he greeted with a twisted smile, adoring the atmosphere. He was never able to make the chemistry room his former Black Magic Club met in as mysterious and spooky as he wanted. High schools tend to remove some of the dark fear that comes hand in hand with black magic. But the room where the Dark Arts Club met was splendid. It was simple but eerie and the sounds echoed like ghosts in the enclosed space.

"The Dark Queen will be here soon," Daisuke explained, pressing a small paper pouch in Nekozawa's hand. "When she gets here, we're supposed to throw these onto the flames."

Nekozawa lifted the pouch and investigated it, noting the heavy scent.

"It makes the fire turn colours," Daisuke added. "It's pretty cool."

"Here she comes! The Dark Queen: Kimiko Rin-sama!" one of the figures announced and all of the attention turned to the steps where black heeled boots stepped into view, slowly making their way down the stairs and showing more of the mysterious figure with it.

When she came fully into view, the Dark Arts Club members threw their pouches onto the flames, Nekozawa a split second behind them, and the fire roared, the flames flickering different colours - blue, purple, white, green. When they died down to the quiet fire they were before the commotion, Nekozawa could finally observe the mysterious Dark Queen.

She was tall, dressed entirely in black, her eyes lined heavily and her lips like black rose petals. Her hair fell to her chin in jagged, jet stands, and her eyes were the colour of ice and steel - just as cold and hard too. Her eyes fell on him and she stepped forward.

"So we did get a new one," she mused, reaching to flick the side of his hood and he took a step back. The young woman was terribly intimidating.

"What interest do you have in the Dark Arts?" she demanded, voice hard.

"It runs in my blood," he replied with a sharp head tilt and dark smirk.

"It runs in all our blood," she remarked. "It's why we're here."

"But I am descended from the Tokarev Dynasty of Russia," he went on. "My family has worshiped cats and cat shaped items for generations." He lifted Beelzenef from the folds of his cloak. "I, myself, am certainly not a novice to the dark arts."

"Hmm," she thought aloud, moving her eyes along his body and taking in the cloak and black hair hiding much of his face. "You do look creepy enough," she muttered and turned to face them all. "Tonight we shall cast our anger into the flames and scry. We shall see if good fortune is in store for us this semester."

With that, she produced a small black leather pouch and thrust her hand inside, pulling out a fistful of black powder that she tossed onto the flames with a dramatic flourish. She turned her back on the fire and took a few steps away as fuzzy images began to dance with each flicker of firelight and the club members gasped, making her turn back around and her metal eyes to widen.

A smile played at Nekozawa's lips. Ah, black magic. It had been too long since he had attended a proper scrying. While the so-called Dark Queen's form was a bit off and she evidently prized dramatics over quality, true images had been conjured. He looked into the fire, squinting his eyes to make out the static pictures and saw a running cat, an alter, blood.

"Behold!" The Queen, Rin, announced, opening her arms and facing them all. "I have projected my sight for you all to gaze upon!"

Nekozawa broke his concentration on the images to regard her with an unamused stare, hidden under the hem of his hood. She didn't project anything at all. Did she not know how this particular method of image scrying worked?

When he looked back the images were simply a mess of smokey grey on the glowing fire.


End file.
